Clean Bills, Poison Pills

The American public gets it.  The same American voters who replaced spineless Democrats with fire-breathing Republicans get it.  They are faulting the Republicans – the folks they just voted into majority power in both houses of Congress – for bringing government to its knees: with a shutdown of government, with a threatened default on our debt payments, and with the most recent threat not to fund the Dept. of Homeland Security.  And they are doing so even though they voted for those rascals.  Perhaps the American public really likes gridlock or brinksmanship government, perhaps they prefer do-nothing Congresses, perhaps they prefer confrontational government, it makes good theater, it IS exciting after all.

Putting aside the public’s involvement in government by crisis, there is a common denominator in all these cliff-hanger shutdowns and defaults, and that common thread is called “poison pills.”  A “poison pill” is an amendment to a “clean bill” before Congress that a) has nothing to do with the subject matter of the underlying piece of legislation being debated and voted upon and b) forces members to vote up a measure that they do not support (the poison pill amendment) in order to pass a measure that they do support (the clean bill).  A “clean bill” is, of course, a bill before Congress all of whose parts are on the same topic.   And poison pills are invariably attached to bills that have bipartisan support, like funding the military or the government as a whole.

There is an underlying cynicism at work here because the party that introduces the poison pill amendment knows from past experience that it will be blamed for the shutdown or the default, yet they go ahead anyway.  One has the sense that they believe that the American public will forget by the time the next election cycle rolls around.  And since it has been Republicans who have written all the poison pill amendments lately (yes, sure, the Democrats have done the same thing, just not recently), and they keep getting elected, maybe they are right, maybe we forget by the next election cycle.  Or maybe enough Americans think that there are more important issues than shutting down the government or defaulting on our debts.

In the end, in a democracy the people get what they want.  Or deserve.

No New Taxes

No New Taxes is a hard slogan to run an electoral campaign against.  Walter Mondale discovered that when he was honest enough to declare that new taxes were necessary.  George H W Bush, #41, raised taxes after campaigning long and hard on “read my lips, no new taxes.”  His own party fried him in Texas oil and has not forgiven him to this day.  Even without examples, it is hard to imagine anyone running a campaign asking for a tax hike.

Concealed Carry

I am not against the U.S. Constitution, I am not against the 2^nd amendment’s right to keep and bear arms, I am not against gun ownership in general, but I am solidly against the push to legalize concealed carry in the country at large.

Here’s what I foresee as the result of concealed carry legislation.  All of a sudden, all those law-abiding folks packing concealed firearms will imagine everyone else with a concealed firearm.  Now I realize that that is part of their argument: no nut case will dare to do anything stupid when he could be cut down by anyone carrying a concealed firearm (of course, many if not most of the mass killings in the last fifteen years have resulted in the gun man killing himself, so it wouldn’t stop THAT kind of nut case, would it?).  But here is another way to look at it.  Every concealed carry person will imagine everyone else as carrying, and they will be at the ready, always.  And, inevitably, someone will make a movement that some concealed carry person interprets as threatening and out will come HIS firearm (or out will come THEIR firearms) and someone (or more than someONE) will get shot, by accident.  Imagine the 2012 Aurora theater shooting where 12 innocent people lost their lives (and 70 more were injured), think of all those concealed carry guys reacting swiftly to the lone gun man and everyone aiming at the original gun man, imagine the cross-fire carnage.  Worse yet, imagine YOU reacting to the gun man closest to you and how many guns will be aimed not at the original gun man but at some concealed carry owner trying to do a good deed.

So, here is what I think: let the states experiment with concealed carry, one by one, and let’s revisit the subject at a federal level in ten or so years when we have a track record of what happened where.  OK?

A Citizenship Test

In my book, To My Countrymen, in the last few pages, I write these words: “If you, a native-born American, cannot pass the citizenship test that wanna-be citizens must pass, do you think that you should have the right to vote?”

Gerrymandering

It has occurred to me once or twice since publishing my book – since declaring for all time that “it is done” – that I made a mistake not to include an essay on gerrymandering.  Gerrymandering, as we all know, is the practice of state legislatures to draw Congressional districts in such a way as to maximize their majority party’s hold on Congressional seats, and on state-level representation too.  Gerrymandered states look really really strange, carving out districts one voter at a time.  Jig-saw puzzle pieces look much more regular than gerrymandered districts do.

TPP - Trans Pacific Partnership

The Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP for short) has been on my mind these past few days and weeks.  It is a “free-trade” agreement that President Obama wants to be part of his legacy.  The reason that I have not written about it before now is that it may be a tempest in a teapot, no big deal.  The immediate problem is that the terms of the agreement are still shrouded in secrecy.  Which may make sense as all its details have not been hammered out yet.  Perhaps it makes no sense to see what an agreement says while it is still being debated and written.  Which means, I guess, that I am not rationally concerned with its secrecy.  That is, as long as what it says is not yet writ in stone.  The U.S. Constitution was a secret until it was ready to be published and ratified.

Nonetheless, the TPP is a real political issue.  Partly because it is secret so far (see above), partly because what has been leaked (and all leaks are “unofficial” and often unreliable) is really really bad, and partly because we DO know that the President wants to “fast track” it when it is ready to be considered by Congress and voted on.  Fast track seems to mean Congress has 90 days in which to debate the agreement and no permission to introduce any amendments.  The no amendment part sounds conspiratorial and downright evil.  But imagine the chaos if Congress amended it: it would have to go back to the trade negotiators who would alter it again and then back to Congress, ad infinitum, ad nauseum.  When the U.S. Constitution was being considered for ratification by the states, no amendments were allowed for the same reason: it would go back and forth between all the states and the Constitutional Convention forever.  In addition, a Yes to ratification did not mean the written Constitution was perfect, but it DID mean that none of it, not one small piece, was a real problem.  Similarly, a Yes to pass TPP will mean that there is nothing in it that does not pass muster.  As to limiting debate to 90 days, that seems long enough to me to debate a bill that won't be bothered by amendments.   So, I guess I have no serious reservations about Fast Track, as 90 days seems slow enough to me.

Oxfam Report

According to a recent Oxfam report (2014 figures): 

The world’s richest 80 (sic, 80!, that’s – like – 1 per every 100 million people) individuals own as much wealth ($1.9 trillion) as the bottom 50% of the entire world’s population (3.6 billion out of 7.2 billion people).

And the world’s richest 1% (of individuals or families, it doesn’t matter) own 50% of the world’s total wealth ($263 trillion) (the top 1% owns half the wealth, $131 trillion).  That leaves the rest of us sharing 50%, right?  Not too shabby, right?

Wrong, maybe pretty shabby.  How much does the 2nd 1% own, and the 3rd 1%, and the 4th 1%?  A conservative extrapolation would yield 20% for the 2nd 1%, an extra 10% for the 3rd 1%, and an extra 5% for the 4th 1%.   So, a conservative guesstimate would suggest that the wealthiest 5% own 85% or more of the world’s total wealth, leaving the bottom 95% to share 15%.  A little shabbier than owning 50% of the total wealth, right?  By the time you get down to the top 10% and the bottom 90%, once again a very conservative estimate would suggest that the top 10% owns at least 95% of the total wealth and the bottom 90% (that’s you and me bunky) owns less than 5% of the total wealth.  Shabbier yet!  And the bottom 50% own significantly less than 1% of the total wealth (this one is not an extrapolation; this is verified by the report).

If you are OK with that – if “that’s the way the cookie crumbles” – well, God bless you and don’t bother reading any more of my crap; it ain’t worth your time.

The rest of you, continue to read my stuff and check out Robert Reich and Thomas Piketty.

Jefferson on Generations

Thomas Jefferson is famous for having written memorable words for commonplace ideas.  One of these ideas is:  “the earth belongs to the living, the dead have neither powers nor rights over it.”  This quotation comes from a letter he wrote to his friend James Madison on 6 September 1789.  The context for his remarks is the new U.S. Constitution.  Jefferson was registering his concern that a piece of paper composed by one generation might bind the next generation.

Put our quasi-sacred Constitution out of your mind for a moment and consider how you feel about this idea: that the laws of one generation should not bind the next generation, that each generation should make up its own rules for living.  I’ll wait while you consider your own position on this question.

Some historians believe that Jefferson had personal motivations for this idea: his father in law’s death left him with a legacy of land and slaves – and debt.  And he resented the debt being left for him to pay off.  Consider now how you would feel if your father left behind debts for you – his only son – to pay off.  Should a single son be responsible for his own father’s debts on his father’s death?  This time I will quit the essay and wait while you consider this question.  Please do not read the next part of this essay until you have thought this out.

Ferguson

It would be wrong not to comment on this sad story, wouldn't it?  So here goes.

Here is what I don’t know.  I don’t know if Michael Brown assaulted police officer Darrell Wilson.  I don’t know if Michael Brown ever had his hands up in surrender or if he ran away.  I don’t know if Officer Wilson’s life was threatened or if he had reasonable cause to believe it was.   I don’t know a lot of things.

Deficits Don’t Matter

“Deficits Don’t Matter” sounds like some weak liberal defense of our out of control deficit spending.  As I have shown in my book – and what is clear to any student of recent American History – it was Reagan who was the first President to submit huge deficit budgets without a real war to justify them.  While one might argue that he did have a war to justify them – the Cold War – and that that struggle was brought to a successful conclusion in 1989 (under the Presidency of George H W Bush) partly because of the defense build-up and spending, there was no compelling reason not to collect the taxes to pay for that spending (and thereby avoid unnecessarily large deficits) as we were not digging our way out of a depression.

However, the quote belongs to Dick Cheney – Vice President under Obama’s predecessor, George W Bush – and here is the “full” quote: “You know, Paul, Reagan proved that deficits don't matter. We won the mid-term elections, this is our due.”  He was speaking to Paul O’Neill, the Treasury Secretary at the time (within days of becoming a former Treasury Secretary).  While it was primarily a political statement, its contempt for “balanced budgets” and “fiscal responsibility” shines through nonetheless.  It was 2004 when Cheney said it, and the Debt was on its way toward doubling what George W Bush had inherited from Bill Clinton, exploding from $5.8 trillion to $11.9 trillion.

The reason for this partisan rant is this: it is good to have at least one political party be the party of fiscal responsibility.  It is not so good when they ignore their own cardinal principles when they control the government.  But it is not so good when they remember their principles just in time to attack relentlessly a successor President of the other party who has the job of reining in a recession that was their gift to the American people.